


the road to every truth

by flowercoast



Series: that secret that we know, that we don't know how to tell [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, i just want good things for them both, no kisses but theres soft resolution for both of them, technically a continuation of a oneshot but not necessary to read this, they are in love and healing!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22355296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowercoast/pseuds/flowercoast
Summary: When she drops them, Beau is still staring at her. “Are we -” The words get lodged in her throat, and Jester has to fight past the lump, shove the words through the shaking in lungs. “Are we okay?”Beau looks away.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: that secret that we know, that we don't know how to tell [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1607440
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	the road to every truth

Beau stumbles in through their bedroom window when the moon is high over the sleepy slatted roofs of the town’s houses. 

The bottle is still by the corner, untouched on the floor where it lays, lonely. Jester pauses in her drawing and watches cautiously as Beau nearly trips over it, her movements more sluggish than usual. Even in the dim light, Jester can see that Beau’s swaying unsteadily on her feet, stumbling a little over the floor as she collapses into bed with a groan.

Jester scoots back an inch to avoid stray arms as Beau spreads herself out over their shared inn bed, practically melding into the mattress bonelessly. Carefully, Jester places her paints and sketchbook on the floor, where she’s sure neither of them can accidentally kick anything over.

Although Beau’s facedown on the mattress, Jester can tell that she’s not quite asleep yet. The monk’s shoulders aren’t quite relaxed like they usually are when she’s asleep, and her breathing is still uneven, and, on a closer listen, a little ragged. Jester shifts a bit on the bed, drawn to her wounded friend and stuck between wanting to reach out and not wanting to disturb the soft peace that’s been missing between them for a while now. 

“Beau?” Jester whispers tentatively, eyes tracing over the tensing in Beau’s shoulders and the way the moonlight bounces over each of her fresh bruises. They’re so horribly new, painting Beau’s body with large purple and blue splotches, reminiscent of the night sky. It hurts to look at - though recently, Beau hurts to look at too. Jester doesn’t know exactly why. Her chest can’t stop from tightening whenever she looks at Beau, not that Beau’s ever around for Jester to look at, lately. 

“Beau, are you awake?” 

There’s a long stretch of silence where Jester stiffly waits, worrying her lip with a fang because, if Beau does answer, what should she say? The words feel too cluttered and muddled to speak them out loud, and really, all Jester wants to do is heal and hug Beau until they both stop hurting but there’s  _ something  _ between them now, like a large wall, and Jester can’t see Beau past it. 

But. On the other hand, if Beau pretends to be asleep, then what does that say about them? Does Beau just hate her now? What can she do to fix this? Can this even be fixed?

Jester’s half tempted to lay down and sleep until this headache fades and the tightening of her throat goes away, but Beau shifts on the bed, so slightly that if Jester wasn’t watching her so attentively she would’ve missed it. Beau hums, quiet in the night. 

Jester breathes in deep. She hadn’t known how much she missed something so simple as Beau humming. “Are you… Are you okay?” 

“‘M fine.” Her voice is gruff, clipped. It’s not so different from how Beau usually speaks but Jester still clenches a hand in the sheets anyways, because Beau never talks to  _ her _ like that. But it doesn’t matter anyways. Because Beau’s lying to her, when they promised they’d always be truthful with each other, anyways. 

“Um.” Jester brings up a hand, quick, to rub at her hair and scrub at her cheeks, willing herself not to cry. “Okay.” 

It still hurts, anyways. 

Beau breathes out, loud and obtrusive in the tense silence of the moonlit room. She props herself up on her arms, and some part of Jester is hoping, wanting, needing for Beau to look her way, so she can finally see what’s hidden in those blues that she missed for so long. Instead of looking at Jester though, Beau twists around and shifts so she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to Jester. 

“.... Sorry for waking you.” The bedsheets bunch under Beau’s hands, and her shoulders are hunched in like she got punched in the gut. Maybe she did. Jester still hasn’t really seen Beau’s injuries past the bruising on her exposed arms and face, but her breathing is ragged in the way that means she’s really hurt. 

Jester wants to reach out, to just lay her palm on Beau’s arm to tell her about all the words bubbling in her chest but Beau seems to sense this, because she stands shakily from the bed. With a slight limp, Beau begins walking towards the door to their room. Except, it’s still the middle of the night, and Beau is still injured, and all the thoughts in Jester’s head are screaming, so of course Jester stands too, abrupt and loud enough that Beau actually flinches when she hears Jester’s feet hit the floor.

“You’re avoiding me.” 

Exhaling a shaky and heavy breath, Beau jerks to a stop in the middle of the room. The silence that stretches over the two of them is long and painful, and Jester has to cross her arms and dig her nails into the flesh there to keep from reaching out. Something tells her that it’s not a good idea. 

Beau doesn’t turn around. “No -”

“Yes. You are.” Jester takes a step forward. Stops when the floorboards squeak underneath her and just stares at Beau’s hunched back, wondering how long it would take to just close the distance between them. “I know you said you weren’t before, but…”

“I’m not avoiding you.” 

Jester really really wants to believe her. “Why aren’t you looking at me?”

Although she’s already taut like a stretched shadow, Beau tenses further, her shoulders coming up near her ears as her arms move to clutch around her midsection. Jester wants more than anything for Beau to just turn so she can see her blue eyes and really figure out what’s wrong, but Beau’s still turned and speaking to the wall and not saying anything. They’re both just breathing harshly, swimming in their swallowed words. 

“Is it something I did?” Tears fill Jester’s eyes as she stares pleadingly at Beau’s back. “Please, Beau, just tell me what happened so I can fix it because I haven’t seen you in days and you keep on leaving and you tense when you’re around me and you won’t even _ look at me _ -”

She shuts her eyes, arms clutching desperately around herself as the tears drip down her cheeks, running like rivers onto the wooden floor.    
  


“Shit, Jester.” 

Jester opens her eyes to find Beau staring at her, wide eyed and terrified. It’s been so long since Jester’s seen her face that a sob rips it way out of her throat, unbidden and wanting as she looks deep into Beau’s blues. 

Beau reaches out, her hand upturned as if to console, to wrap around Jester like she’s done so many times before, except she isn’t moving an inch. There’s still such a large distance between the two of them, and neither are moving to close that gap. 

“Jester,” Beau whispers, so sad and so guilty. “Jester, I’m so sorry -”

“Stop apologizing!” Jester rubs angrily at her eyes, suddenly overwhelmed with a leaden sick feeling, twisting in her gut. It hurts, it all just hurts. Her head, her eyes, her heart. She’s crying and normally Beau would be next to her, would have an arm over her shoulders, would be holding her close, would be saying sweet things to her, would be  _ here  _ except she’s here but she’s still across the room. “Just…”

Beau bites down on her lip, her hand dropping to her side. “What do you want me to do?”

“Tell me the truth! Just tell me the truth, Beau, please. I can’t -” Jester steps closer to Beau, breathing in sharply when the other girl takes an instinctive step back. 

She looks down at the floor. The moonlight makes little dancers on the floor, the shadows skipping across the wood intermittently. Normally Jester would jump at the chance to draw them, these pretty little shadows, except they cling to the floor more darkly now, and they look like ghosts by Beau’s feet. They’re the ghosts in the ocean between them as the seconds tick by. Jester presses her hands into her eyes.

When she drops them, Beau is still staring at her. “Are we -” The words get lodged in her throat, and Jester has to fight past the lump, shove the words through the shaking in lungs. “Are we okay?”

Beau looks away.

Tears well up in Jester’s eyes again, but she’s so sick of crying, of this stupid heavy weight in her stomach, making her feel so sick inside. Her head really hurts.

“Is there…” Jester pushes past the broken empty feeling in her chest. “What can I do?”

Blue eyes catch her gaze again, and they’re still so sad, sadder than Jester’s ever remembered. “Jester, it’s not you. You don’t have to -” She breaks off and runs a hand over her hair.

“If it’s not me then why are you avoiding me?”

Beau breathes out hard. “It’s me.” 

“What is, Beau?” Jester takes another cautious step forward, blinking the tears away and reveling in the small victory that Beau didn’t step away. “Tell me what it is and I can help.”

“It’s not.” Beau restlessly shifts on the balls of her feet, eyes darting around the room; but she’s staying, thankfully, in her spot in the middle of the floor, where the shadows still dance around her feet. “It’s not something you can fix.”

Jester takes another step forward. “Then what is it?” 

Blue eyes settle on her, taking her in. Usually, Jester can read what Beau’s thinking, or feeling, but now, with her eyes half-hidden by the moving shadows and so far away, Jester finds that she can’t read her eyes at all. 

“I talked with my dad.” Beau finally settles on, her arms crossing as her gaze shifts to the floor. “Earlier.”

“Oh,” Jester says. She takes another step forward. Then another. She pauses in the middle of the room, still too uncertain to take those last few steps. 

She doesn’t have to. Despite not looking up, Beau closes the distance between them and stops just in front of Jester, still tense and taut like a wire. Jester’s whole body warms slightly at having Beau so close, after so long missing her body heat and steady presence beside her. It was always habitual, always a given, to have Beau next to her, that she didn’t realize how much she wanted it until she didn’t have it. 

Beau’s eyes are fixed firmly to the floor. Jester wonders if she’s staring at the shadows still playing across the wood, or if she’s thinking about something else. 

Jester reaches out hesitantly. “I didn’t know you went to see him.” 

“Yeah. Went with Nott.” Beau shrugs, her lips pursed. “I dunno. Just felt like it.”

A blue hand tentatively wraps around Beau’s warm forearm, the hold just loose enough for Beau to easily break but also tight enough for Beau to feel the weight and pressure of it. “Are you okay?”

Beau laughs bitterly. “Great.”

“Beau.”

“I’m…” Beau coughs. Shrugs again and steps just a tiny bit closer to Jester. 

Jester steps forward too, squeezes Beau’s arm and reaches out with her other hand to slide her palm smoothly against Beau’s cheek. “Whatever he said, he’s wrong.”

“You don’t even know what he said.”

“I know he’s a dick, though.” 

“Yeah,” Beau breathes out, her eyes finally moving from the floor to look at Jester, still sad but softer. 

Jester bites on her lower lip, stares at Beau for a second before nodding and pulling her into a long overdue hug, their bodies melting and molding into each other as Jester’s arms wrap tight around Beau, who squeezes her back just as hard.

“I don’t know what he said, but. You’re good, Beau. And you always have us. You always have me.” Jester hears Beau sniffle lightly, and she holds her more tightly. “Even when you’re avoiding me.”

With a shaky exhale and a wet laugh, Beau pulls away, not enough to break their hug but just far enough to look Jester in the eyes. “I’m sorry. Really.”

“It’s okay -”

“No,” Beau interrupts sharply. “It’s not.”

Jester looks away, the leaden feeling from earlier threatening to creep back up. “No. It’s not.” 

“You deserve better. And I promised myself I’d do better. I never meant to hurt you, but I was being selfish with my own shit and you were. You were hurt. Because of me.” Squeezing her hands around Jester’s shoulders, Beau bites her lip, her eyes serious and clear, for the first time that night. “I never, ever want to hurt you. I’m so fucking sorry I did. You deserve the whole fucking world and I... Shit Jes, I’m -” 

Beau tugs her closer, sighs so loudly like the whole weight of the world’s crushing her chest and the weight in Jester’s stomach eases as Beau’s arms hold her tight. “I’m so sorry, Jes.”

Jester squeezes back twice as hard.

The shadows around their feet are gone, leaving only the streaming blue moonlight seeping through the wood. If she squinted, though, she could still make out the slightest shifting of movement in the way the light filtered in, like it’s still making room for shapes to pass through the light and dance some more. Which suddenly reminds her of something she’d been meaning to address earlier.

Pulling away from the hug, Jester moves her hand up to Beau’s cheek, feeling the pulsing warmth of a new bruise along her cheekbone, fingertips grazing a fresh cut on her eyebrow. 

“You’re hurt,” Jester whispers, the night suddenly quiet and soft in the aftermath of the tense minefield it was earlier.

“Nothin’ too bad,” Beau replies, staring at Jester with an indefinable intensity. She leans into Jester’s palm, wincing only a little when the movement causes Jester’s fingers to dig into the wound. 

Jester just hums in response, focusing in on the Traveler and letting the magic flow through her fingers to seep into the wounds and bruises along Beau’s face, sweeping her fingers lightly across Beau’s jaw too, just to check. Not because Beau’s sharp inhale makes her head feel lighter, and her ragged exhale causes her stomach to flutter. Not that. 

Her fingers tap lightly against Beau’s cheek, searching around for other wounds Beau might have. “Is that all?”

“The others will heal.” At Jester’s raised eyebrow, Beau’s hand comes up to gently wrap around Jester’s wrist. “I’m good, I promise.”

“You’ll tell me if you aren’t?” 

Beau stares at her, soft and open now, exactly the look that makes Jester’s heart flutter. Exactly the look she missed the past few days. “I’ll tell you if anything’s up… I won’t avoid you anymore, either.”

“Promise?”   
  


“Promise.”

Jester sweeps her fingers across Beau’s cheekbone again, smiling softly at the way those blue eyes flutter a bit at her touch. “Beau?”

“Hm?”

“Your dad fucking sucks.”

A sharp laugh draws out of Beau then, clearly caught off guard. “Yeah. He does.” 

“You shouldn’t listen to him. You’re the best person I know.” Jester’s other hand comes up to rest lightly against Beau’s neck, her palm against smooth skin. “I love you.”

Beau sucks in a sharp breath. “I… I love you too.”

The grins they share are wide and untamed, shining bright from the moonlight cascading through the curtains of the dusty inn room. If Jester looked hard enough, the shadows would probably still be dancing across the floor lightly, pretty enough to want to draw. She doesn’t look though. She stares at Beau and breathes out deep, the pain in her chest healing and her stomach lighter than ever.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from “she always takes it black” by gregory alan isakov  
> btw the line “you’ll love her till it all goes dark / you’ll love her even after that” makes me go feral every single time  
> catch me on tumblr @flowercoasts! im taking prompts & asks :)


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